17th to 19th July 07 - Rotterdam

We’ve taken so many photos of the city – but you’ll be pleased to know we made a selection! See http://picasaweb.google.com/findthebinghams/17th19thJulyRotterdam

Rotterdam is a stunning place to visit - a definite ‘must’ for a long city break. Busy, cheerful and full of fascinating constructions and feats of design and engineering (Rick in his element here!). It has a really dramatic cityscape, and is rightly proud of being the City of Architecture 2007. It really is worth a visit.

A 75 min architecture boat trip (in glorious sun) took us past some amazing buildings, from an 1880 water treatment tower and the awe-inspiring Shipping and Transport College (see pic), the art deco America Line building and the Erasmus Bridge.

The 1984 Cube Houses (pic) are advertised as ‘impossible architecture’, and indeed they ware intriguing inside, being tilted cubes on stumpy towers. Mind you, I thought the whole complex had the feel of a slightly upmarket Hyde Park Flats with dangerous staircases and severe fire escape issues…….

We walked around the delightful old Schiedam area, with its narrow streets and meandering canals with 18/19thC boats (clippers, turfship(?). We found a delicious hand-made chocolate factory, and a jenever museum (still not sure what that was!). Friendly people and a lovely atmosphere.

We could cycle round the city easily – not only is it flat, but the cycle routes are so well-developed and bikes have priority. We’ve done quite a lot of cycling and Heather reckons we should have firm bums by now – ha! I’ll look forward to that happy event…..

We went to the National Architecture Institute to see an exhibition of work by Le Corbusier– a creative polymath, it seems – painting, sculpture, furniture design, houses, churches, flats (I could see where the concept for Park Hill came from).

However, the highlight was going up the 185 meter high Euromast – what a spectacular panorama across the city! especially when viewed from a rotating glass lift (I leaned back into my seat!). The experience was almost as good as eating the amazing icecream dessert in the brasserie, at 100 meters high, overlooking the harbour area and watching the huge barges charging about below – wow!